Diamond Case Designs
Sanus Systems
OmniMount
BDI
Bell'O
Salamander Designs

The Sanus Flat Panel AV Foundations PFFP2b is a three-shelf pedestal with sleek platinum lines and a custom-blended silver finish to complement your home theater gear. Its open architecture maximizes airflow and its innovative aluminum column is designed to support large TVs with grace.

OmniMount's Moda Wall Furniture System is a modular flat panel mounting solution that puts your components on the wall with your TV. Expandable to grow with your home theater, it features a wood veneer finish and tempered glass shelves, and conceals cables without having to route them through the wall.

BDI's Marina 8729 home theater cabinet gives you high-tech features – including flow-through ventilation and wire management – in a high-gloss style that revisits the chic, modern look of the 1950s. Integrated speaker and media storage space are masked behind the quiet-close doors.

The Bell'O PR-10E Espresso Finish Wood Home Entertainment Cabinet holds your flat panel TV and features dark tempered safety glass doors to hide up to six components while allowing you to operate them with a remote control. There's also a pull-out drawer for A center channel speaker and media storage space.

Salamander Designs' Talia home theater seating lets you recline and relax in cushioned leather or microsuede comfort. Chairs come in a variety of colors to match your room, and can be linked in rows for theater-style seating – complete with optional cup holders.

Diamond Case Designs, Phoenix 42T conceals a 37-42" flat panel TV in an automated lift mechanism. In addition, it provides accommodations for 4-5 components, a center channel speaker, and media storage. Hidden casters provide mobility for access to the removable back where equipment can be loaded and wired conveniently from behind.

You probably spent hours researching your last home theater purchase before finally pulling out your wallet. After all, you wanted to make absolutely sure that you were getting the best LCD screen, DVR, or Blu-Ray DVD player possible for your money.

But how much time did you spend thinking about the mount that would attach your TV to the wall for all to see? Or about where you would put the rest of your equipment while the TV floated on the wall like a fine piece of art?

Chances are, your time and energy went mostly to choosing your gear, and the furniture to house it was at best an afterthought. Well, you may want to adjust your thinking – because not only do today's slim, sleek flat panel TVs beg for furniture and mounting systems that show them off to their full advantage, but the furniture itself is being designed to maximize the look as well as the performance of the electronics.

As the days of boxy rear projection TVs and gigantic wall units fade into our collective memories, a new age is upon us – where not only can a home theater provide eye-popping visual and ear-pleasing audio entertainment, but can also look fabulous even when the television is turned off.

Clearly, flat panel TVs have revolutionized home theater. They've also revolutionized home décor.

"Before flat panels, a television was a utility piece. Now it's a design element in a room," says Marc Sculler, president of Bell'O. "So most furniture today has been designed to take into account the thin look, the sleekness of the TV, even when that sleekness is incorporated into traditional-style furniture that will blend into the home."

So where do you begin? Right off the bat comes the choice of whether to mount your TV on the wall, place it on a piece of furniture, or mount it on a piece of furniture so it looks like it's floating on the wall.

Everyone initially has the image of a flat panel TV hanging on the wall like a high-tech painting. After all, that's what all of us who watched "The Jetsons" knew we'd have someday. And for those who want that look, there are dozens of mounting systems on the market that support the TV on the wall. Many of them let you tilt and swivel the screen, or extend it away from the wall for viewing then collapse it back flat when you're done.

There are a few issues, though, to consider when considering a wall mount. Number one, once the TV is mounted, you probably won't be moving it anytime soon, which means you'd better be very happy with your room layout as it is. Number two, it has to be secure – you don't want your expensive plasma TV crashing to the floor – which means drilling into the wall. If you live in a rental or condo, drilling holes in the wall might be a no-no.

What's more, if you don't trust yourself to find wall studs (or don't even know what a wall stud is), you'll have to find someone who can professionally install your TV. And don't forget about the wires and cables, which you certainly don't want dangling down the wall in plain sight. A professional installer can hide them in the wall for you, or you can use a wire management option to conceal and channel them as you connect the TV to your other components. Speaking of components, where do you put them?

"Mounting systems are great and are certainly sold with many flat panel TVs, but once you get into a home theater system, it becomes more challenging," says Bill Becker, CEO and design director of BDI. "You need a place for your center channel speaker and you still have to house your components somewhere; so for most people, furniture makes sense.

"What's nice is, as prices come down on the TVs themselves, it frees up money for you to spend on furniture, to make sure you're getting a piece that is designed to both look good and function well with your equipment," he adds.

There is no question that flat panel TVs have spawned an amazing array of furniture specifically designed to showcase the wide screen and shallow depth of the displays, while providing space to place a variety of components. Your choices range from contemporary to traditional ; wood to extruded metal and glass; floor-standing pieces to wall-mounted shelves; open racks to closed cabinets – in other words, just about any look and style to fit your taste.

"We've completely revamped our furniture line in the past year, and have redesigned the size and shape to fit with today's TVs and components," says Jeff Morris, spokesman for Sanus Systems. "We're now beginning to create a wide variety of pieces in sizes and shapes that we've never done before, that offer a better aesthetic in the room – and that are possible because of the flat panel. "We can now offer, for example, a lowboy that's maybe 16 inches off the wall and that's much more appealing that a bulkier piece that juts two feet or more into the room," he adds. "We're also shifting to some darker, unique woods, and adding accents with extruded aluminum or patterned glass, that give the pieces a different look from traditional A/V furniture."

If you like the idea of your plasma or LCD screen floating on the wall but don't actually want to mount it there, many furniture pieces incorporate their own mounting brackets, so the screen "hovers" at the top of the pedestal or over the top of the cabinet. On the other hand, if you'd like to hide your screen when it's not in use, there are cabinets with lift mechanisms that raise the TV to viewing height when you're ready to watch, then lower it out of sight so the cabinet can go incognito as just another piece of fine furniture in the room. Yet other furniture pieces, such as some wall units from Diamond Case Designs, feature a back wall that is designed to have a flat panel attached directly to it, with raised columns at each end that hide the mounting mechanism when viewed from the side.

"One key element is that all our furniture is on hidden, heavy-duty urethane casters, so it can be moved easily when you need to have access to the back," says Dave Hartfelder, president. "We also make the back panels removable, so you can unbolt them quickly to get at your equipment, and replace them just as easily. That means no struggling with trying to pull a receiver or other component out the front and balancing it on your legs while you try to get at the connections in the back."

Unless you're choosing your home theater furniture strictly by the lowest price, chances are it is not only crafted to look good in your home, but also engineered to do right by your investment in electronic gear. That can mean everything from having proper ventilation to offering vibration dampening.

"Each of our products is built around the electronics that will go into it," says Michael Benedetto, national sales manager for Salamander Designs. "So we build in features like ventilation and active cooling – things you may not always know you need, but especially with high-definition receivers or anything with a hard drive in it, you absolutely need to keep the equipment cool for it to run properly."

Notes Danny Vinokur, president of Executive Traders Worldwide, distributor of the Soundations brand, "As an audiophile-based company, we build home theater furniture with a focus on creating pieces that don't resonate, because aside from looks, it has to sound right. A lot of people see themselves spending $3,000 on a plasma TV, but they don't allot money for the furniture that will allow it perform the best it can."

The sound quality theme is echoed by Mindy Duong, creative director for Lovan USA. "Almost all of our products feature a 'Trisolation System' that provides sensitive electronic components with isolation from sound vibration, as well as exceptional stability," she says. "The construction acts as a damper, protecting equipment from harmful vibration, and giving you cleaner music and voice, more powerful sound effects, and tighter, deeper bass."

As Zach Eyman, chief of design for OmniMount, concludes, "Today's flat panel TVs have become an essential element in the design of a room – which means that now, more than ever, furniture to hold them or mount them is a real focal point of décor. We've devised a host of solutions for mounting equipment on the wall or housing it on the floor, so consumers can choose the furniture that complements their home theater components as well as their home."